Founded: 1977
Headquarters: North Kingstown, R.I.
Locations: 85 stores, 7 states
Privately owned, so sales and earnings data not available

Sources: familydollar.com; oceanstatejoblot.com

“We’re being cautious,” she said, as she browsed the children’s shelves.

Long a favorite of retirees, bargain hunters and working-class families, budget stores like Family Dollar and Ocean State Job Lot are drawing a wider range of customers these days, as the recession deepens.

In an overlooked niche amid supermarkets, shopping malls and giant discounters like Wal-Mart and BJ’s Wholesale Club, stores like Family Dollar and Ocean State are selling increased amounts of food, laundry detergent and other household products, and comparatively less clothing and other merchandise – yet another sign that consumers are concentrating on what they need, rather than what they’d like to have.

That’s the mood Dedham teacher Elizabeth Hetzler was in at the Ocean State store in Quincy, as she filled her shopping cart with flavored crackers and other staples.

“I’m buying more now because I figure it will be more expensive later,” she said.

Boston College marketing professor Roberta Clarke said the recession has left most consumers choosing low price over brand names for everything from groceries to flat-screen TVs. Ocean State manager Scott King and Family Dollar spokesman Joshua Braverman say their companies are trying to capitalize, by selling overstocks of well-known brands and designer items for less.

The strategy has produced higher sales and net earnings for Family Dollar, as most national retailers are losing money. Braverman said the Charlotte-based chain isn’t trying to take advantage of hard times, though he did say the company is more “recession resilient” than most.

That was easy to see on a recent afternoon, when longtime customers like Lynn Morris and her daughter Drucilla Morris shared the aisles with Karen Smith and a recently laid-off corporate job recruiter.

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Robert, who declined to give his last name, was there with his wife, “trying to stretch our limited resources,” he said.

The Morrises were regulars even before Lynn Morris lost her job with an Abington tool company that moved out of state. They go more often now.

“You can make your budget better,” said Drucilla Morris, who’s 23 and has been sending out resumes for sales and clerical jobs.

Hetzler and her husband don’t have to worry as much about their budget, but like other Ocean State and Family Dollar customers, they aren’t shopping as much, and rarely indulge impulse purchases.

“You think, ‘Do I really need that?’” Hetzler said.

On the other side of the store, plumber and Quincy native Bobby Martin was browsing for bargains, too – and thinking about the stories his father told him about growing up during the Great Depression of the 1930s, when he and his parents occasionally had to visit Boston soup kitchens to get by.

“As long as I’m not in a soup line, I’m doing OK,” Martin said.

Ocean State manager Scott King figures most of his customers are still doing OK, too, because his store is selling more bags of birdseed than it did before the recession set in.